Classical Japanese Resources

Japanese Language Resources
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Hi everyone! I started studying classical Japanese in university a few months ago, and I was wondering if anyone here has recs forclassical Japanese resources. I don’t really know what I am looking for, so anything that can help would be great ^-^

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Try this section of Imabi: https://www.imabi.net/classical.htm

If you’re confident enough about handling regular Japanese, with Classical Japanese being the main ‘problem’, then you might also want to try googling structures in Japanese. I believe Weblio has a 古文=Classical Japanese dictionary, and there are several sites that cover Classical Japanese grammar. These should show up when you google 古文 structures. They’re all in Japanese though. Finally, there are a few YouTube channels (again, in Japanese) that provide lessons on Classical Japanese. That’s about all I can think of for now.

I’m sorry that there aren’t more resources I can think of in English, because my assumption was always that one would only start Classical Japanese after mastering modern Japanese to a substantial degree, and I frankly haven’t come across many resources in English covering the topic. A final idea would be to learn about common classical structures based on remnants you can find in modern Japanese. For example, っけ and けれども are remnants of once common Classical Japanese structures. You can also look into the godan verb stems in order to see how they’re used in Classical Japanese (I believe almost all godan verbs used to be yodan, actually) and learn about verb forms that used to exist that no longer exist now. In particular, understanding the broader uses of 未然形 and 已然形 would probably be a good start. Finally, you should probably try looking into proverbs and sayings, because those will give you bite-sized glimpses of what Classical Japanese looked like. For example, 世の中は三日見ぬ間の桜かな, in which you get to see one of the old negative forms, 〜ぬ.

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I would share my textbook with you but it’s in Dutch. I believe Imabi has a guide but I haven’t checked it for accuracy. https://www.imabi.net/

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:eyes: I’d be interested in that.

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Same :smile_cat: Ik zou het fantastisch vinden als je je tekstboek kan delen!

(just so I don’t annoy any english friends : “I’d love if you could share your textbook”)

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I have looked into classical Japanese for fun, but it’s too much at this moment in life.

I got started with this Tofugu article. And then this university guide list.

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Is that the “Beknopte grammatica klassiek Japans” by prof. Smits and Vd Veere?

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My old uni textbook mentions a whole list of resources, such as

  • Helen Craig McCullough, Bungo Manual: Selected Reference Materials for Students of Clasical Japanese, Cornell East Asia Series, Ithica (1988)
  • Haruo Shirane, Classical Japanese: A Grammar, New York; Columbia University Press (2005)
  • John Timothy Wixted, A Handbook to Classical Japanese, Cornell University (2006)
  • […]

OK, I was going to type out all of it for easier copy-pasting, but got lazy and decided to take a picture instead. Sorry.

20210103_011246
20210103_011246750×1333 207 KB

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Ja, inderdaad!

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Ik kijk morgen ff of ik de pdfjes nog heb, herinner me gerust als ik t vergeet><

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I’ll check if I still got the pdf files tomorrow, feel free to remind me if I forget!

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Thank you for the detailed reply!

I am using the weblio classical Japanese dictionary, but I am at this stage of modern Japanese where I understand only about half, so I keep having to cross-use it with jisho.org.

And thank you for all the tips!

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Thank you, that’s great!

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Ik was het bijna vergeten maar hier is de link met alle bestandjes die we in de lessen gebruikt hadden https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1iAia4I3lW0PHJVh7CpWLuKykUbT2hPMe?usp=sharing

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I totally forgot but here’s everything we used in class https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1iAia4I3lW0PHJVh7CpWLuKykUbT2hPMe?usp=sharing

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Super! Bedankt voor het delen :smile_cat:

Seems to need access, still thanks for thinking about me :smile_cat:

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Zo jaloers! Heb meerdere malen met afgunst naar het curriculum Japans in Leiden gekeken :slight_smile: Bedankt voor het delen!

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Mocht je de kans hebben er te studeren, raad ik t zeker aan. Wat betreft een baan na de studie kan je erg weinig met Japanstudies, ik kan zelf ook niets vinden. Maar gewoon voor je eigen plezier is het echt een aanrader.

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You should have access now I think, tell me if it works!

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Does this link work for you?
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=1iAia4I3lW0PHJVh7CpWLuKykUbT2hPMe

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